


Stubborn Is as Stubborn Does

by RakishAngle (afterdinnerminx)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6267685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterdinnerminx/pseuds/RakishAngle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phryne absconds via fire escape but is detected by our favorite Detective Inspector.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stubborn Is as Stubborn Does

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher is once again hanging by a thread, or at least a trench coat, and wondering whether her lucky break and enter hat needs replacing. 

Of course, it is skill and not luck to find the right place to go sleuthing. And it takes a finely crafted and practiced skill (not luck) for getting into said locale. 

The luck part has to do with getting interrupted. Frequently. By a certain detective inspector. In the middle of a good snoop. Again. 

Hence, the immediate need for a milliner after descending undamaged and unseen from this particular fire escape. 

The next question under rumination in is on whether to drop to the pavement, possibly breaking a heel in the process, or to swing over to the pipe, which appears to be coated in an unidentifiable black slime that Mr. Butler may or may not be able to remove.

She's interrupted mid-swing. "How camest thou in this pickle, Miss Fisher?" So much for being unseen. Now, there's just the undamaged part. 

"Jack! You know I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last."

"Ah, and while your whiskey is so good that I can almost believe that, it doesn't explain how you've come to be swinging precariously from a fire escape just outside the window of my crime scene."

"You must mean my crime scene, Jack. I'm fairly certain that I was here first." Phryne feels her left hand slide an inch down along the wool gaberdine of her raincoat. Undamaged is looking less and less likely.

"Your crime scene then. Would you care to mention anything that you might have removed during your suitably unconventional exit from _your_ crime scene? It's just that you may have taken something I might need in the near future."

Inspector Jack Robinson has been slowly making his way out the window and down the ladder so that he can speak more quietly to the private investigator. She's been in this predicament several times in recent weeks and though she'll quite happily make the escape on her own, he's likely to get a certain pleasure out of assisting. He kneels down and quickly climbs down the five metal rungs to come eye to eye with the absconding private eye, before locking his ankles around the last rung and turning upside down so that he is hanging at the same height as her, albeit pointing in a different direction.

He reaches down and slides her heel out of one shoe, looks inside and lets it fall to a flourish to the pavement below. "Hmmm...it isn't here," he says as he reaches down to remove her other shoe. He looks inside, frowning. "Nope, not here either." The second is tossed in a similar manner to the first and his hands move the waistband of her trousers.

"Jack! What are you doing?" Phryne squirms, though she's not in a position to do anything to stop the slow separation of teeth at her zipper or the slip of fabric away from her hips. 

Jack shakes out the pants, looking down to see if anything drops out of them and makes eye contact, the subtle threat clear that these are about to go in the direction of her dearly departed shoes. "It doesn't appear to be here either." He changes his mind about letting the trousers fall to the pavement and decides, instead, to loop them around her neck.

"This are nice. Is it new?" Jack fingers the dagger at the top of her stocking. "I'm afraid that I'll have to confiscate it. Concealing a weapon is still illegal in Victoria, Phryne. And, I must say, you are dangerously close to being arrested for indecency. What in God's name were you thinking by coming out here in such a state?"

She feels his breath warm at the top of her thigh.

"Jack."

He grabs her from behind and nibbles her hip through her satin pants. "Yes, my love. Is there something you'd like to tell me or shall I continue my search for evidence?" His hands start traveling up, slowly popping the fastenings at the middle of her back and sweeping one hand around to catch a grimy, folded paper from falling out of the inner fabric.

The DI relaxes so that he is once again head down and unfolds the paper to see what looks like a phone number. "So, I do need to speak with Sam Baxter after all. It's a good thing that Constable Collins is taking him down to the station as we speak."

Jack folds up the paper, buttons it away in his jacket, bends so that he is upright and starts climbing up the ladder again. "Will you be joining me, Miss Fisher?" Jack presses his lips into a thin line, waiting for more moments than usual for her response, which he gets in the form of her pressing into him after doing a fair few impressive gymnastics. She continues the flight up, leaving him to appreciate the view.

He then starts his own climb only to find that his feet are stuck firm to the bottom rung of the ladder. His shoes have been secured to each other and to the last metal rung with a perfect sailors bend knot, the most secure of all knots that he knows about and one practiced, undoubtedly, with the help of a Portuguese sailor.

Jack looks up into a hanging mop of hair and a beautiful red smirk. "Come on, Jack! We have a witness to question."


End file.
